Today Jane Austen might repeat her words but with a different reference: "It is a truth universally acknowledged ..." that to take a walk entails surprises, adventure, meeting and viewing our fellow creatures.

One day recently I saw two hares cavorting, a red squirrel scurrying and a superb fox staring at me. Unfascinated, he trotted off. But I was easily outdone by a French walker near the northern village of Commer who discovered, lying in a ditch, a lion cub. The cub was very ill, abandoned by a circus. He was saved, one of the innocent of our earth. With these thoughts I set off to walk the Flaggy Shore wondering if there were surprises in store.

The day was sunny with enough wind to send the clouds rushing and the waves rippling. My first sighting was of two young great northern divers and an adult. The latter, presumably the mother, was supervising the dives of the young until a gull crashed down, separating them. It continued this behaviour until the mother outwitted it by diving, followed by her brood, to surface far away. A little further on my walk about 20 oystercatchers flew right over my head. Their spread wings and white undercarriages, catching the light, turned to silver.

At last I came to Loch Muirí, a wild loch that is very close to the sea. On the loch there must have been a hundred mute swans feeding. Once it was thought they paired for life and were regarded as symbols of faithfulness – often a swan's feather was sewn into a husband's pillow to secure fidelity.

Among the swans were certainly about 300 wigeon (Mareca penelope). (As readers will know, "penelope" is from the Greek meaning "duck". Penelope was the daughter of Icarus, who threw her into the sea from where she was rescued by seabirds called penelopes.) But then I could not believe my eyes for there, feeding among swans and wigeon were two black swans. A walk of surprises.